Carbon Tax and Sustainability - Consultations, Research and Reflections by Conrad McCarthy and Natalie Perry
While going around from class to class collecting ideas for energy conservation, water conservation and climate change reduction, I noticed that many staff and students did not know what the carbon tax was. It is important for everyone to be informed on what the carbon tax is as Ontario was implementing a carbon tax within six months from the beginning of our discussions. The United Nations (UN) also released a report with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stating that if global warming increases by 0.5°C, it will have detrimental effects on our planet. Right now we are headed to reach this increase in temperature between 2030 and 2052, increasing the global temperature to 1.5°C. This will have detrimental effects on our ecosystems, causing extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels. If we do not do something, there will be irreversible effects on our planet caused by climate change. The carbon tax is a simple step to try to encourage the human population to reduce their carbon emissions, by raising the price of carbon (adding a tax). This encourages humans to use less carbon, as it is more expensive, hoping to reduce the carbon emission levels released since pre-industrial times. Carbon emissions (mainly carbon dioxide) are large contributors to climate change. In fact economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won a Nobel Prize in 2018 for their work on the economics of climate change. The UN report was issued just after they won their prize. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.4843029/nobel-prize-winning-economist-says-carbon-taxes-are-the-solution-to-climate-change-1.4854639
This is the first step to try and save the planet.
Here is the link to my Carbon Tax Fact Sheet
https://bantinggreen.blogspot.com/2019/04/carbon-tax-fact-sheet-google-docs-link.html
Natalie Perry
Here is the link to my Carbon Tax Fact Sheet
https://bantinggreen.blogspot.com/2019/04/carbon-tax-fact-sheet-google-docs-link.html
Natalie Perry
Consultation, Research and Reflection
Carbon taxing is one of the biggest ways our government has made strides in climate change reduction and ecosystem conservation. However, we cannot only rely on our government to combat the threat of global warming and climate change. It’s amazing how much can be done by individuals to make strides in this area as well, and it’s everyone’s job to make the most active effort in trying to conserve and reduce everyday waste and neglect. Our collection of ideas here at Banting has provided loads of ideas that can make amazing strides in the conservation of our resources and environment. Here are just a few of them!
World Water Week + Earth Hour Spring 2018 Ideas
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Water Conservation
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Energy conservation
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Climate Change reduction
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Conservation importance cannot be overstated. What we have on this planet is all we will ever have for millions of years, so it’s important to use the resources sparingly and with more than a few minutes of thought. When discussing ideas for conservation, many people were unaware of how serious the issues of sustainability and climate change are. For us, sustainability has never been more important, and due to the recent United Nation’s report, the evidence of the need for it should be more than enough to cause incentive. Many news sources report heavily on pollution, and although that’s wonderful, sometimes it’s difficult not to get desensitised to the overload of information, and most do not underline the issues or how best to solve them. Climate change can feel like a problem without a solution, but by reducing what we use, as well as saving what we have, we can make a severe impact on the threat.
When it comes to Water, nothing is more important than reduction. This wonderful molecule is the reason for life here on earth, and it only makes sense we attempt to keep it clean for as long as possible. Only 3% of our water is drinkable, the rest is full of salt in our oceans, and being such, it’s important to hold onto as much of it as possible. Being fortunate enough to live within Canada, the country with more lakes and rivers than the rest of the world combined, water is very accessible. But with this comes a sense of abundance and wastefulness. The average Canadian uses 329 liters of water every single day. That’s enough water to fill up a bathtub 4 times, and that’s discarding the commercial and industrial sectors, which use even more than that. The Canadian government also spent roughly a billion dollars in 2012 in order to attack water pollution. It’s unbelievably important to attempt to reduce these numbers, keeping water clean and avoiding use, helps ecosystems grow and lowers the impact of droughts and climate change.
Let’s not lie to ourselves, modern day humans adore the luxuries of modern life. Our smartphones, air conditioning, refrigerators and all the little things that make our lives easier. But these small things can add up, and they add up fast. It’s important to try to minimize how much electricity we use, but many people don’t put a lot of thought into it. After all, electricity is fairly cheap considering how much we get from it, and it’s easy for it to just be an afterthought, or a way of life now. That being said, electricity production is usually the most cited cause for climate change and global warming next to vehicles and engines. Minimizing it is as simple as minimizing your usage of it. For perspective, energy produced by the burning of fossil fuels is only 33% efficient. For every liter of gas you put in your vehicle, you’re only getting the energy potential of 330ml, the rest is lost to heat. As well 7% of energy from power plants are lost just by moving it through the lines. That’s energy wasted by the release of carbon emissions that just don’t go to powering anything. There are inefficiencies involved in powering objects that most people don’t even think of. Canadians are wasteful in their energy usage too. While it’s nearly impossible to live a electric free lifestyle nowadays, the average Canadian used 4568 kW/h in 2015 alone, and a lot of it can be attributed to wasteful sources, such as leaving lights on, devices plugged in, and inefficient appliances. Reducing energy is probably the fastest and easiest thing you can do as an individual to actively combat climate change.
Climate change reduction is the hardest to combat. Though your efforts to reduce the use of water and power has certainly helped, the best thing to do is to live as minimalist a lifestyle as possible. Avoiding fossil fuels and any products that are created from their base compounds is the biggest way to reduce your impact. Reusing anything you can, either by donating anything you are no longer using, or avoiding consumerism and choosing reusable objects can have massive impacts on your carbon footprint. Currently, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” (a large collection of trash within the pacific ocean) is twice the size of texas, and is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. This is one of 7 oceanic collections, and should we look at the landfills (2.12 billion tons worldwide), it’s clear that the world has serious issues with waste disposal. The decomposition of these plastics and compounds release tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly Methane gas, which is 4x denser than Carbon Dioxide gas and therefore requires much less before trapping large amounts of heat from our dear sun. Reducing what you throw out and avoiding driving to the best of your ability is one of the best and easiest ways to actively fight the threat of climate change. It’s easier to maintain something than it is to fix it, and this applies to global warming and climate change.
Many of the ideas presented above are just simple ways that a person can make a difference in their energy, water usage and overall carbon footprint. The carbon tax is just one simple example of a way for controlling our carbon emissions. If one person takes the step to make a change, more and more people will be influenced to do it as well and together we can reduce the effects of climate change on our planet before it causes irreversible damage. It’s not a hard task, humans just need to live sustainably.
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-exponential-increase-of-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/
Conrad McCarthy and Natalie Perry
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